2d. The king will protect equally the papists and the Lutherans, and will give to the latter the security which they have not hitherto enjoyed.
3d. Marriage, which has been for centuries prohibited to canons, monks, and other ministers of the church, is henceforth permitted to them.
4th. Bishops instead of going to Rome for the pallium, shall be bound to ask for confirmation by the king.[[278]]
A great religious revolution was hereby brought about in the kingdom. By the abolition of celibacy the hierarchy was destroyed; by the abolition of the pallium relations with the papacy were suppressed; and the first two articles allowed the evangelical church to be built up on the ruins of Rome.
The first impulse of the clergy was to reject the whole of the articles; but the dread in which the bishops stood of Christian, the fear lest some foreign power should reinstate him on the throne, made them tremble. If the king did place himself on the side of the Gospel, he was at least moderate, while Christian was violent and cruel. The prelates held their peace. In accepting the liberty which was left them, they had indeed somewhat of the air of men who were being put in chains; but far from crying out very loudly, they showed some eagerness to submit. They had, it is true, one consolation; their tithes, their property were secured to them, so long as they should not be called in question by lawful trial. Nevertheless, beneath this apparent submission lay hidden an immovable resolution. All the prelates were determined to defend energetically the doctrine and the constitution of the papacy, and to seize the first favorable opportunity to fall on the Reformation and to drive it out of Denmark.[[279]]
CHAPTER III.
TRIUMPH OF THE REFORMATION UNDER THE REIGN OF FREDERICK I., THE PEACEFUL.
(1527-1533.)
Tausen, the son of the peasant of Kiertminde, was still in the convent of Viborg, and wore the dress of the Johannites; but he was fearlessly propagating the doctrines of the Reformation. A singular monk, that! said the friends of the prior, Peter Jansen. Fearing that he had a wolf in his sheepfold, the prior drove Tausen out of his monastery. The townsmen received him with enthusiasm. They took him to the cemetery of the Dominicans; and the reformer, taking his stand on a tombstone, preached to a crowd of living men as they stood or sat upon the sepulchres of the dead. Ere long the church of the Franciscans was opened to him. In the morning the monks said mass in the church, and in the afternoon Tausen and his friends preached there the Word of God. Sometimes on going out from the service controversy was kindled, and laymen and monks came to high words, and even to blows. Then the bishop prohibited the preaching; and this largely increased the number of laymen who were impatient to hear the man of whom the monks were so much afraid. The bishop took other measures. Foot-soldiers and horsemen had orders to prevent the townsmen from going to the church in which Tausen preached. But the laymen, still more resolute than the priests, barricaded with chains the streets by which the troops were to arrive; and then, leaving a certain number of their own party to defend the barricades, went to the service armed from head to foot. At this news the bishop in alarm ordered the gates of his palace to be closed; and, fancying that he already saw the townsmen marching to the assault, put himself in a state of defence. Thus was the message of peace accompanied by very warlike circumstances. |Churches Assigned To Evangelicals.| The king interposed. He deemed it just that the evangelicals as well as the Catholics should have freedom to worship God, and therefore assigned to the townsmen the churches of the Franciscans and Dominicans. The monks, enraged, closed the doors of the churches; the townsmen opened them by force. The monks, terrified, then flew for refuge to their cells. In a little while the music of hymns composed by Tausen, and sung by his flock, reached their ears, and somewhat calmed their fluttering hearts. The reformers wished to be fair. They left to the monks for their worship the vaulted galleries which surrounded the church. But the soldiery did not show so much toleration. One day four horsemen, another day fifteen, says a historian,[[280]] came and took up their quarters in these galleries. It amounted almost to a dragonnade. The singing of the monks and the tramping of the horses must have made very inharmonious music. The king had certainly nothing to do with this annoyance. More strife was inevitable. The two mendicant orders, who depended for their livelihood on the charity of the people, no longer receiving any gifts, found themselves soon reduced to the greatest straits. The Franciscans sold a silver chalice; but this went only a little way. They then adopted the plan of going away; and in this prudent scheme the townsmen were eager to give them assistance. In fact the latter set themselves to the business so zealously that some thought they were driving the monks away. Liberty was indeed the general law of the kingdom, but it was not always respected in details.[[281]]
The monks went away; but printers, booksellers, and books came to the town. The contrast is characteristic. In all towns in which the Reformation obtained a footing, a printing press was at the same time established. Out of the struggles of the Reformation sprang up everywhere a taste for reading. One day the arrival of a bookseller, named Johann Weingarten, caused great joy at Viborg. Tausen immediately took advantage of the circumstance, and began to compose a work which he entitled—Pastoral and Episcopal Letter of Jesus Christ. In it Christ himself addresses the people of Denmark. They had forsaken him to seek rest in the idol Baal which was at Rome. But Christ returns to those who desert him, and offers them the grace of the love of God. ‘Hear you not the sound of these trumpets which my prophets have been blowing these ten years past? They make the holy word of the Gospel to resound in the whole world. Go whither it calls you. Do not fear because you are but few in number. It is no hard task for me to give a little flock the victory over a great multitude.’ Many writings of a similar kind followed. Tausen thus with all his might urged his people along in the path of the truth.[[282]]
Several circumstances favorable to the Reformation successively occurred. The bishop of Roeskilde, the greatest adversary of the Reformation, having died, the king chose for his successor Joachim Roennov,[[283]] a gentleman of his court, who had resided a long time at Paris and in other universities. He was of noble rank and a native of Holstein, a country particularly dear to the king. Unfortunately, Frederick had made choice of him rather because he was a friend of his house and capable of defending his sons after his death, than as a friend of the Gospel. It is not certain that Roennov was a churchman. He was probably at this time ordained successively deacon, priest, and bishop. He was obliged to pledge himself not to oppose the preaching of the Word of God, and this he did willingly. But it happened to him as it did to Aeneas Sylvius, who, when he once became pope, adopted with the tiara its principles and its prejudices.
Another measure of the king was more successful. He founded or authorized the foundation at Malmoe of a school of theology in conformity with the Holy Scriptures; and among its first professors were Wormorsen, Tondebinder, and Peter Laurent. The king further required that the canonries vacant at Copenhagen should be given to men capable of training priests and students in the true science of theology. Some of the doctors of Viborg and Malmoe gave soon afterwards the imposition of hands to young Christian men who were prepared to proclaim the Gospel. But while doing so, they declared that they did not communicate to them any sacerdotal unction, which pertained to God alone, but that they established them in the ministry as men worthy of it.[[284]]